Chicago Bears: Interesting position battles to watch this offseason

The safety battle is not won just yet for the Chicago Bears.

The Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Pace surprisingly added safety as the next open competition battle. The Chicago Bears draft Deon Bush in the fourth-round of the 2016 NFL draft. Adrain Amos was playing the free safety role while  Harold Jones-Quartey (HJQ) played the strong safety role with Deon Bush.

Bush was lost in the mix of safeties over the years when the Chicago Bears were focused on finding their next Mike Brown. The Chicago Bears brought in Clinton Haha-Dix last season to pair with Eddie Jackson. Many might have forgotten about Bush was known as a throw-back downhill hard-hitting safety. The knock-on Bush was that he had limited range, lacks ball skills and doesn’t have long speed to keep up with fast players running down the seams.

Most of the Chicago Bear fans expected the team to draft a safety early with one of the two second-round draft selections they had. Instead, Ryan Pace passed on the safety position in the draft and signed Tashaun Gipson to compete with Deon Bush.

Ryan Pace was excited to mention that he cannot wait to see how it will play out between those two safeties. Gipson is more of a traditional average free safety. When he has been put on teams with an excellent defensive framework, he has thrived in his role.

In 2017 and 2018, Tashaun Gipson had PFF grades around 70 in both run defense and coverage. There have been some inconsistent years for Tashaun Gipson throughout his career, but he has been an above-average safety in the NFL.

Deon Bush, in his limited time playing, had an 81.6 PFF grade last year in coverage. In 2018 he had a 77.6 coverage grade. Deon Bush will make a strong push to earn the starting spot opposite of Eddie Jackson. A lot of fans have penciled in Tashaun Gipson, but Chuck Pagano as shown that he has liked Deon Bush, I wouldn’t count out Deon Bush just yet.